14 Keys to Making Any Leader a Compelling Public Speaker

Why do some talks stick in your mind with vivid clarity, while others are almost instantly forgotten? And more important, how do you make sure yours fall in the first category?

For leaders, our ability to persuade, motivate, convince and inspire is a determining factor in whether we have a motivated group of employees marching purposefully towards a common goal or the opposite. And there is simply no stronger way to communicate than being in front of people, looking them in the eyes.

PUBLIC SPEAKING: All leaders benefit from being compelling public speakers in getting their message through. In picture Paul de Gelder (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Starter tips (followed by more advanced and pro ones):

Accept adrenaline as your friend

Even experienced speakers feel the blood racing before they go on stage. It is natural for your body to respond like this. I’ve taught my body to welcome the adrenaline rush rather than disliking the feeling. I interpret the adrenaline as helping to focus all my attention on optimal performance, and that's a vast improvement over feeling nervous.

Your opening sentence is your best shot

The first impression you give on stage is powerful and almost impossible to erase. So if you practice nothing else, then practice your opening line. A good template is, “Today I want to tell you a story about…" It’s a common mistake for speakers to start with an apology: “My colleague was actually supposed to give this talk,” or “I had little time to prepare.” This oozes insecurity, which you may feel but certainly don’t want to project. So no more “Can you all hear me” or “Is this on” as your opening line. That’s wasting your best shot at catching their attention.

Loosen your jaw and shoulders

Nervousness will cause your jaw and shoulders to tighten, which makes your voice smaller and makes you appear less confident. While waiting to go on stage move your jaw around and roll your shoulders to loosen them. That will make your articulation clearer.

Stand in the solar plexus of the stage

If you minimize the distance between yourself and your listeners, you can create a better connection. So rather than standing behind a lectern or a table, make sure you’re located with the best possible sight lines to as many as possible. Often the best spot is a little to the side of the middle, where you can connect with both sides of the room.

Always use a microphone

While many feel self-conscious speaking with a microphone, it’s a strain for an audience to hear everything without one. And when it’s arduous to listen to you, people will zone out. So always use a microphone, especially if you plan to use humor in the talk.

Advanced tips:

Tell stories

Stories are the way humans are programmed to remember details and be emotionally moved. So try to wrap your point into a story. For example, telling a tale of your product through the eyes of one single user often brings to life the problems the product solves. Images with human faces on your slides can also evoke positive emotions, as listeners respond emotionally to eye contact.

Make bold points

As controversial as it may be, your message comes across much clearer if it’s told in black and white. Yes, you may step on someone toes by being blunt, but a speech filled with “on the other hand” becomes dull. Dare to make bold points, and be ready to stand up for them.

Pause

The single most underrated element in public speaking is pausing. A pause puts emphasis on what you just said, drives home your point, and gives the audience time for the message to sink in. Make yourself comfortable with bouts of silence on stage, and build in pauses after points that are really important.

Adjust to each audience

I had a painful experience at one of my first talks as a paid speaker where I’d been told that the audience was “C-level”, but in reality 80% were employees. This meant that all my action points were inapplicable to them. Total mismatch. This taught me how important it is to understand where your audience is coming from and to tell your story in a way that is relevant to them.

Slides are for emphasis, not information

We all know how excruciatingly boring it is when someone reads out loud from their slides. Instead, use the slides to emphasize your words by reducing text to the bare minimum and applying a visual format with images as background. This makes it all more lively and enables you to reach people who are more visual than auditory.

Pro tips:

Reduce distracting behavior

It’s distracting to watch a presenter whose arms fly around, who touches his or her face or repeats certain words. I used to walk around too much, so I’ve trained by standing firmly within the area of a newspaper placed on the floor. Try filming a talk on video to identify if you’re fidgety or use redundant words, like umm and ah, so you can weed them out.

Inject humor

Laughing transforms a listener to from a passive recipient to an active participant, and catches the attention of the guy next to him checking his emails. Without turning a serious topic into comedy, the most masterful speakers often manage to make people laugh once or twice. So think of funny incidents related to your topic, and weave them in. The funniest talk I’ve ever heard was by Michelle Mone, founder of Ultimo, who managed to weave in a story about how she threw up on Gorbachev's shoes from extreme nervousness. She had everyone in tears before she even started her main story.

Give a little bit of yourself

In this age of information, it is not facts but our courage and fragility that can create the strongest impact. Allowing an audience to see a bit of weakness creates an emotional connection that is impossible in a sales-like talk. It’s no coincidence that Brene Brown’s TED talk on “the power of vulnerability” has been viewed 22 million times. We connect to someone who dares to share his or her mistakes with us.

Speak like a bear

Psychologically we associate depth of voice with power. (It has been proven that we’re more likely to vote for politicians who have lower voices.) This is worth being aware of, as nervousness makes the pitch of our voices higher. loosening your jaw and trying to speak from your stomach is helpful.